Haunted
by emmaketurah
Summary: The NCIS team are faced with a very personal case, one that wil bring back painful memories from the past.
1. Chapter 1

"Tony, I swear, if I have to listen to one more movie fact on this stakeout, I'm going to take out my gun and start shooting." Ziva turned her intense gaze on her partner and held up her hand. "No, no. I do not care about Martin Lawrence, or this Steve Martin. Now we are here to work."

They'd been surveilling a petty officer suspected of providing weapons to a small but determined militia group based in Virginia. They had recieved the tip off yesterday evening and tailed him from his on-base housing to this average street in D.C., hoping he would meet with a buyer and they could bring him in.

Tony grinned. He loved winding her up, for some reason her accent always sounded sexier when she was exasperated with him. He was about to retort when she elbowed him in the side as she bent to pick up the binoculars, which had fallen from her lap onto the floor of the sedan.

Instead Tony said, "He's entering number 731. Looks like our anonymous tipster was right."

Ziva put down the binoculars and turned to look at Tony who was already reaching for his door handle. Taking the cue Ziva unfastened her seatbelt and exited the car. Walking lightly but quickly, they approached the building. Together they reached the door their petty officer had entered and drew their weapons. Tony pulled the door open a crack and peered inside. The hallway was clear. He motioned to Ziva and they stepped inside.

Ziva noticed an elevator on her left. "The elevator is stopping on level four."

"I'll take the stairs," Tony replied as he moved towards the stairwell.

Ziva nodded, jabbed the call button impatiently and waited for the elevator to decend.

--

Tony ran up the stairs, some childish part of him wanting to beat Ziva to the fourth floor, even though it wasn't a race. He kept his ears alert for the sound of footsteps from above. He had just reached the fourth floor landing when the door flew open and their suspect barged through, knocking Tony off his feet. Tony groaned as his ribs hit the corner of the concrete steps. His weapon 

clattered into a corner. Hurting and slightly winded, Tony pulled himself to his feet with the railing and scooped up his gun. He could hear the petty officer's footsteps coming from the landing below him and put on a burst of speed in an effort to catch up. Every step seemed to jar his ribs and Tony forced himself to continue his pursuit. Third floor, second floor, and finally the first floor. Tony had heard the suspect exit the stairwell only moments before and slammed his shoulder into the door, pushing it open and running for the exit.

"Stop! NCIS!" Tony shouted, still slightly winded. It didn't come out as forcefully as he'd hoped.

The petty officer merely glanced at Tony over his shoulder and ran out onto the sidewalk. Tony reached the doorway in time to see his car pull away from the kerb and disappear amongst the traffic on the street.

Wearily Tony headed for the elevator, hoping Ziva wasn't having trouble coping with the buyer alone. As he waited, he wondered what could have spooked their man so badly that he'd run from a million dollar paycheck.

--

Ziva had however, discovered that she was in quite possibly the slowest elevator in the modern world. It had taken her longer to reach the fourth floor than it had Tony, meaning that when she had arrived the hallway had been empty. She'd walked stealthily along the corridor, looking for some sign of their suspect and finding none until she'd come across a door that was ajar. She'd stopped and listened but there was only silence. Her instincts told her that their was nobody in the apartment, and wondering where her suspect had gone, she stepped inside. She found herself in an empty room. One side was carpeted and the other was tiled with a small kitchenette. It looked as though it had been thoroughly cleaned not long ago and smelled like bleach. Ziva noticed two closed doors, which she guessed led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Both doors were open a crack, as if their petty officer had checked them out before leaving.

There was still no sign of Tony, so Ziva decided to check out the other rooms. The first door was indeed a bathroom, just as clean as the living area. It too, was absolutely empty. Not holding out much hope for the third room, Ziva opened it slowly and her eyes widened. This room wasn't empty. In the centre of the room was a cast iron frame bed. It was made with crisp, white sheets. It had been scattered with rose thorns but this was not what drew Ziva's attention. On top of the bed lay a human skeleton. It had been laid there very carefully, piece by piece, in the middle of the bed, as if it were sleeping only it was missing its head.

Pulling her cell out of her pocket, Ziva called it in to Gibbs.


	2. Chapter 2

Ziva heard the elevator ding out in the hallway, followed by a muffled curse.

"Are you alright out there Tony?" Ziva called from the apartment living room. She'd already informed Gibbs about the skeleton and he was on his way with the rest of the team.

Tony managed to shout back that yeah, he was fine. A moment later he appeared in the doorway of apartment 42 clutching his right side.

"What happened? Did we get our buyer?" Tony asked.

"It appears our buyer was never here. Although someone has been here recently. There's a headless skeleton in the bedroom. Gibbs is already on his way." Ziva took in Tony's pained expression. "Tony, what happened to you?"

"Got knocked down the stairs by our suspect, he was racing to get out of here. I lost him once he got out onto the street." He shifted his weight to the other foot and gave a small groan. "It's nothing, really."

_Sure,_ thought Ziva to herself. Aloud she said, "now that you're here I'm going down to the car to get the camera.

Tony nodded his assent and once she was out the door, sank gratefully onto the floor. The skeleton could wait, his ribs _hurt_.

--

It had been a relatively quiet day for Abby Sciuto. There had been a few 9mm rounds to match, some biological material to identify and hidden partitions to find on a suspect's laptop. The sun was at just the right angle to shine through the lab's ground level window and Abby was lying on the floor with Bert in the shadows next to her mass spectometer. The hum of her equipment was soothing to Abby, and right now soothing was what she needed. There was a funny feeling in her stomach that she had learned to pay attention to over the years. It was a feeling that frequently meant something horrible was going to happen. She hugged Bert, who gave a loud fart.

"Don't worry Bert, I called Gibbs, he'll be down soon." Abby whispered to him.

The light receded and shadows lengthened as the sun's path moved it from the window, still Abby lay on the floor. As she lay there she mentally ran through all known manufacturers of shampoos to keep her mind occupied. Something must have broken in a case because Gibbs still hadn't arrived in the lab. It was the only thing that would keep Gibbs away when she called for him.

--

Gibbs arrived with McGee, Ducky and Jimmy in tow. They Ziva already taking photos and Tony sketching the scene.

McGee pulled out his fingerprinting power and began dusting. Ducky and Jimmy immediately made their way to the bed. Gibbs could hear snatches of conversation, "female", "late twenties, early thirties" and couldn't help but smile to himself. They were gelling into a well oiled machine.

"Jethro." Ducky called him over. "It appears that the bones had been wired together so as to hold the shape of the body. I recall a half dozen cases from Wales in 1967 where a similar method was used in serial murders."

"What would be the point of wiring it together if it's not complete, Duck?"

"The 1967 killer kept some part of the body as a trophy, a femur from one, an ulna from another. He was eventually caught when a neighbour's springer spaniel dug the femur from his backyard and took it home to it's master, who just happened to be a member of the local law enforcement. " Ducky paused. "Or it could simply be that the skull has been damaged in a way that would lead back to the killer, and he's covering his tracks."

Gibbs took a moment to process this. "I don't suppose you can tell me how long she's been here?"

"Always the impatient one. Once I get her back to autopsy I'll have access to the proper equipment. I could approximate maybe 12-20 hours, judging by the freshness of the handful of rose petals under the skeleton. Time of death remains a mystery."

Ducky turned to Jimmy and began discussing how best to transport the remains back to Headquarters.

"David, once you're done, start canvassing the building for anyone who might have seen someone entering or leaving this apartment."

"And me Boss?" Tony looked at Gibbs expectantly.

Gibbs saw the way Tony kept his free hand on his ribs. "DiNozzo, you go get yourself looked at by Ducky. I can't have my senior field agent running after criminals with only one hand."


	3. Chapter 3

Ducky stood staring at the brightly lit x-rays he'd taken of the headless skeleton. He could see that the woman had broken her left wrist as a young girl. Something about that nagged at Ducky, as if he held the answer to the woman's identity in his brain. He checked the woman's height and probable weight, both which only increased the feeling that he had known this woman. But it would be very difficult to determine how long she'd been dead, as the bones had been stripped of all flesh by some kind of beetle, or maggots.

Ducky crossed to the autopsy table and picked up a femur. It was highly improbable that this idea would pan out, but there may be some residual bone marrow to take DNA from. Very carefully, Ducky donned his protective gear and drilled into the bone. He took a scraping of what he hoped would be DNA yeilding bone marrow and put it into an evidence container.

"Let's find out who you are, young lady," Ducky said aloud, "and in doing so, hopefully find out how you died."

--

Abby's lab sounded like a nightclub when Ducky arrived and Abby was not immediately visible from the doorway. Ducky knew that when she worried, Abby would turn her music up and frequently tuck herself away in a small nook of the lab. Lately that place had been down the back in her ballistics section.

Ducky turned the music down slightly, just enough that he wouldn't need to yell when he found her. Then he went looking for Abby. She was where he had thought she'd be.

"Abigail, what's wrong my dear?"

"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." Abby quickly pulled herself into a sitting position on the floor.

"You don't look fine. I can tell when something has upset you."

Abby shook her head. "I can't shake the feeling that something bad is happening. And that is the last thing we need Ducky. Especially after..." Abby let her sentence trail off and Ducky lowered himself down slowly to sit beside her.

"It's always hard when you lose one of the team ," Ducky began, for once in his life, not quite knowing what to say. Abby always took it hard when one of the team so much as needed a band-aid. So when one was killed, she just about fell apart.

"Why do things like this happen to us Ducky? We're good people. We do good work and we catch the bad guys. We make this world a better place and this is how we're rewarded? It's not fair." Abby put her head in her hands.

Ducky put his hand on Abby's shoulder. "The best thing to do is to keep going. Keep putting those bastards behind bars. Keep on making this world a safer place Abigail."

Abby nodded. "You're right. You're absolutely right." For the first time she noticed the evidence jar. "What have you got for me? Whatever it is, I'll be all over it."

Ducky saw that Abby was pulling herself together and smiled. Forensics was Abby's safe haven, something to keep her mind occupied. He watched as she gave Bert one last squeeze and stood up, pulling Ducky up too. Talking with Ducky made her feel better almost as much as talking to Gibbs.

--

Ziva knocked on what she hoped would be the last door in her effort to find a witness who could give information on who was responsible for the headless skeleton. It turned out that Tony had cracked three ribs and was unable to be of any further assistance that day. This meant it took twice as long as it would normally and Ziva sighed. All she wanted was to go home to a nice, warm, bubble bath and read her book. It didn't look like that was going to happen any time soon.

"NCIS". Ziva knocked again. "Please, if you're home answer the door".

Ziva gave up and turned around in the direction of the elevator. She's taken only three steps when she heard the door open a crack. Turning around she saw a little girl of about six years old had poked her head out.

"Hi", the girl said shyly.

"Hi. I'm Ziva, is your mommy or daddy home?"

The little girl shook her head.

Ziva tried again. "Is there an adult in there that I could talk to?"

Again the little girl shook her head. "No, only me. My mommy is working and she'll be back later. She goes away all the time but she always comes back."

"Ok sweetie," Ziva pulled out her NCIS badge, knelt before the girl and held it up. "I'm with the police. My name is Ziva."

The little girl looked carefully at the badge and then at Ziva's face. She decided that Ziva was telling the truth and smiled.

"My name is Katie", she said then she held up her stuffed bear, "and this is Lucy."

Katie's stomach decided that was the perfect moment to start rumbling and Ziva felt a rush of sympathy for the girl. What kind of parent left her little girl alone while she went out all day.

"Well Katie, how about I come inside and you can have a sandwich while I call your mommy?"


End file.
